Moving in and demo of the closet

The back room really sold us on the house. The light is amazing; sun streams in all morning and afternoon. The view is facing west out onto the backyard with only the train tracks along that side of the property.

Immediately after getting the keys we ripped out the existing carpet. Once orange it was now grayish and the under pad was merely dust. The other thing that had to go was the huge closet on the north side. Running almost the entire wall, they seemed to think it was a good idea to end it 18” from the wall leaving a lovely unusable space in the corner

Ripping it out was easy, patching it back up took a lot longer than expected.

And now we know: patching is hard, drywall dust is a huge mess and don’t hire your friends

How It Used To Be

Besides the old people smell, the house was dated and had a lot of ugly going on. There was disintegrating carpet, floral borders and brass floral light fixtures. The basement was a 70’s wet dream; knotty pine paneling, orange shag carpet, mirrored bar and dead animal pelts hung strategically. The shower was accessed from a separate room and featured a fan directly in the stall as well as brown water.

The front room was okay, just needed some paint and the removal of the lace doily curtains.

The dining room was plain. Again needed simple updates including a new light fixture.

And the back room, with the great windows.

Overall the house was plain, a little dated but with good bones (or so we thought). Hardwood floors throughout and a massive backyard were some of the best features of the house. So began our adventure in home ownership.

Our First House

We bought this house in May 2009. Its previous occupants, an elderly couple, had decided the stairs were no longer manageable for them.

For 2 years we lived in a downtown 2 bedroom apartment. Like many apartments ours had both positives and negatives, and it was when those negatives began to become unbearable that the decision to buy a house was made. Cigarette smoke coming up through the floor boards, a tiny kitchen, a laneway that was only 4 inches wider than the car, shared parking that often required a 20 point turn, loud upstairs neighbors, no hot water and no heat were some of the more pressing issues that began to grate on us. So we sadly said goodbye to the great location where you could walk to amenities and told ourselves that life in the suburbs would be great.

This house hit most of our must haves; easy access to transit, under 30 minute commute to downtown, outdoor space and 2 bedrooms. Naively we looked at the rather dated interior and thought only of adding value to the property over the years as we updated the little house. We planned to take on a few projects a year, gradually improving the place while enjoying time with our friends and traveling. We thought that buying a house 3 months before our wedding would be easy, I mean none of the repairs had to be done right away? So what could possibly cause us additional stress over the summer?

We were so wrong.

So we are learning and working hard. Some days we love our house and some days, when yet another project takes ten times longer than planned, we wish for the carefree life of apartment living.

At least now we have an awesome collection of tools to play with!